


Michaelmas Term, 1998

by randomscientist



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Oxford, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 09:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12105498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomscientist/pseuds/randomscientist
Summary: They finally broached the subject of their past, all deductions and teasing remarks, a conversation kept as light as could be managed. But later that night, when Irene drifted into sleep, her head resting on his chest and his arms wrapped around her back, it was with a young Sherlock on her mind, struggling with his addiction, miserable, and alone.





	Michaelmas Term, 1998

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this is not a properly recounted story. To actually write it in full would have required much more time and work than I can afford to spend. Thought I'd share the concept anyway :]

Sherlock and Irene finally broached the subject of their past, all deductions and teasing remarks, a conversation kept as light as could be managed. But later that night, when Irene drifted into sleep, her head resting on his chest and his arms wrapped around her back, it was with a young Sherlock on her mind, struggling with his addiction, miserable, and alone.

The next morning she finds herself in an old-fashioned student room. Takes a glance at the mirror and she doesn’t even look like herself. Oh wait she does look like herself - if she were back to being 18..! There is paperwork on the desk, some freshers welcome pack and assignments, all dated 1998..

* * *

 

Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler had both completed their undergraduate studies at Oxford. Sherlock read Chemistry and was starting his third year when Irene enrolled. They'd probably walked past each other in the street (it’s a tiny city after all) and never ‘met’.

Now that 18-again Irene has 'lived the future’, however, she'll recognise Sherlock within an instant. When she returns from clubbing, past midnight, and walks past a certain dark alley. Seeing a young (though physically 'older than her’) Sherlock struggling with drugs, she’ll be aching to help relieve his agony.

Yet interfering with history could alter his life path and thereby change  _them_. And a large part of her did still want them to have every moment of what (she remembers) they shared. With  _that_  Sherlock Holmes, the damaged and delusional man that showed up on the doorstep of her Belgravia flat, confident of his ridiculous disguise. The brainy consulting detective, sharp eyes and high cheekbones, rubbing a bleeding face.

The Sherlock that, through antithesis and wits and battles and games and one-upmanship that never ends and holidays that do and always too soon, she has come to think of as  _hers_.

She tells herself to maintain minimal involvement with 20-year-old Sherlock. To help the poor lad with his addiction, yes, but to keep her distance too.

Oh but can she really? To him, it would be as though seeing  _light_  when lost in darkness and despair. After going through boredom and hell, in an environment filled with study machines and social butterflies, and under unbearable pressure from his brother and family, and suddenly there is  _her_? Someone so brilliant and enigmatic and who seems to really  _see_  and understand him?

It seems inevitable that he would be drawn to her. Clinging on, even. Like a desperate, drowning man. Inevitable that something will develop, beyond respect, beyond admiration and gratitude, beyond friendship..

But how can she return his sentiment, sentiment from this Sherlock before he becomes the man she knew, this Sherlock who is- who is practically still a  _child_? She still tries (and perhaps fails at times) to remain detached, even if it means hurting him. She hopes she won’t be staying in 1998 for long anyway.

[…]

* * *

 

When Irene wakes up to ‘present day’, nothing appears out of the ordinary about her bedroom (and company) in her NYC flat. Did she just have a dream about going back through time, to her first year at Oxford, and spending an entire Michaelmas term, a most memorable nine weeks, resisting from falling for  _him_ all over again?

Well that was illogical, and so unlike her usual mind, but wow did it feel  _real_. And.. distressingly emotional.

Her hand instinctively finds its way across the warm body pressed against her. One touch to his forearm, and her heart skips a beat.

( _The marks, they’ve-_

 _..It wasn’t a dream._ )

* * *

 

**Alternative Ending:**

Everything, every little detail, remains just as she knows them to be. Life continues as though nothing unusual has happened at all. And this impossible dream of hers, the brief period of time spent with a younger Sherlock, will now become nothing more than a memory, tucked away in the back of her mind.

But what Irene doesn’t know, and what Sherlock hasn’t shared, not with her, not with anyone, is an encounter and experience that he’s always remembered as having turned his life around, in Michaelmas term, 1998.

And constituting his moment of shock as she walked into that sunny room in her flat in Belgravia, was an element of recognition.

**Author's Note:**

> Just going to leave this here and quietly walk away x
> 
> I personally prefer the latter version. A time loop. Predestination paradox, always happened and always going to happen.


End file.
